“I haven’t seen this program embraced so quickly and enthusiastically by a city since we started exporting the program out of (Washington) DC,” says Andy van Duym, vice president of National Geographic Live.

The program allows the storied magazine’s photographers a stage to share their adventures with the public — when it began in Toronto in 2011, four photographers each staged a one-night presentation.

Out of 30 cities in North America and Europe, only Toronto has gone from one date to three for each of the season’s four presenters, in under five years.

With the release of the next lineup for the hugely popular series at Roy Thomson Hall, there is now a Sunday matinee, as well as two evening options.

The combination of exploration, science and journalism caught fire from the start, with capacity crowds every season. The next crop of presenters is bound to be the same.

Steve Winter, 58, kicks off the season in October, with his stories of trailing big cats.

He’s living his dream, deciding at age 8 he wanted to be a National Geographic photographer, transporting people to other worlds as the magazine did for him. He preferred documenting people until an assignment took him to a Guatemalan rainforest.

Winter spent six weeks alone capturing the Resplendent Quetzal, an elusive bird. But he knew he wasn’t alone. It turns out he was being stalked by a black panther.

“If anyone had told me that my next story would be the first ever National Geographic jaguars’ story, I would have said ‘You’re crazy, I don’t know anything about big cats,’” he says.

He knows plenty now after 20 years of working for the storied magazine.

Pete McBride’s first spread was in 2000. Since then he’s made a name for himself capturing on film and in words stories of the world’s great rivers and our tenuous connection to dwindling freshwater supplies. He presents in May.

“I think the public is starting to care and that is critical,” McBride says. “At the same time, there’s ongoing drought, climate change is playing a role . . . and the demands are growing too.”

In November, David Doubilet and Jennifer Hayes will share their explorations of secret underwater worlds and in March Mike Libecki and Cory Richards will retrace their journey to Antarctica.

Presenting to a live audience is like gathering a group around the campfire for storytelling for these photographers, van Duym says.

“It’s a big part of their own inspiration if they get to come back, be onstage and share their stories,” he says.

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